Page 28 of Bullet

“They just turned off.”

“Just like that? They aren’t circling around to get in front of you?”

“Jesus god,” she yelps. “I hope not.”

“Don’t hang up. Keep heading where Bullet told you to head.”

“I’m not going to stop, Linny, believe me. I want to live to see tomorrow.”

My heart goes berserk at that, and my whole body breaks into a clammy sweat that causes my silk blouse to stick to my chest. “We’ll be okay. I’ve got this.”

“You mean, they do.”

“The club. Yes. That’s what I mean.” It should kill me to admit it, but maybe I’m too far gone to care. Maybe I truly did give up all my morals a few years ago, when I thought I’d just checked them or put them on reserve, in order to take the cases I did.

Even guilty people need lawyers. If I lost every case or refused to take any, I wouldn’t have been working as a criminal lawyer anywhere. The odds of getting an innocent client were slim to none in criminal law. I knew that before I started, and I still picked it. If I was worried about being a good girl and my principles, I should have gone into a different area of law. Honestly, though, I can’t think of a single area where I wouldn’t have had to mute out what I believed was right in order to do my job.

“Because you’re going to work for them?”

“I think they would have helped regardless. This is an issue with Harold and his son and they’re trying to scare us.” I don’t want to use any word worse than scare. I might stroke out and crash this car if I allow myself to go there. “I’ll fix this. I don’t have to take the club job if you don’t want me to. We can sell the house and move somewhere else. I’ll pass the bar there and get a job. You can go to college in a different state. We’ll make it work, and we’ll be safe.”

The line is quiet for an unnaturally long amount of time. Willa usually just blurts out whatever she’s thinking, even if it’s nonsensical. Because she does that and it’s her first instinct, she often changes her mind later. That silence says she’s thinking about how to respond.

“I don’t want to leave,” Willa finally whispers. “This is our home. Are we going to allow some thugs to determine where and how we live?”

“It could be dangerous. Someone following you and burning down a building is no joke.”

“Maybe this asshat has used up all his scare tactics.”

“Are you sure they’re not following you anymore?”

There’s a moment of silence. “I’m sure,” she breathes, relief crackling in her wavering sigh. “They probably got notice that a whole armada of pissed off, scary bikers were coming for them.”

I suddenly get a really bad feeling about this. “How would they know? They’d have to have someone watching either the clubhouse or the road.”

“You said that jerk lived in Hart. If he can pay someone to freaking stalk me and burn things, then he’d probably have spies everywhere.”

I’m starting to feel like I’m in an action movie, and I do not like it. I’m not saying my life was perfect before. I don’t really even have any notion of what true happiness feels like. I probably worked too much and stressed too much, but at least there was some sort of safety to be found in routine.

“You should just date Bullet and work for the club. You’ll have their protection, and then you can get them to burn Harold’s house down as payback.”

Date Bullet?Where the hell did that come from? Ignoring what my sister just said, I say, “You have to beat these people at their own game. There is no getting even with thugs. There’s always going to be more, uh, more…”

“Thuggery?”

My lips twitch. “I guess so.” I have to tell Willa about Bullet’s offer. Now that this is our reality, I don’t know what else I can do. “Bullet offered protection. Even as his personal lawyer, I think the club would still offer their resources. I don’t have to work for them, and I certainly don’t have todatehim.”

“Why don’t you, though? He’s hot.”

I have a list of reasons prepared, but in light of this past week, my reasons don’t feel so legit anymore. The fact that if I was dating a known criminal, I could get fired. That’s already been covered. The whole morals thing. I’d bend my principles pretty damn far if I had to in order to protect my sister. The fact that Bullet and his friends are criminal thugs, and nothing goodcould ever come from that association. As Bullet planned, after meeting them, I had to admit that the ones I met seemed nice, but seeing them mobilize like this, in a matter of minutes, to protect Willa like she’s one of their own? To call them bad men and at the same time have begged for their help is the worst kind of hypocrisy. It would make me a total asshole.

“I like being single,” I protest, but the words sound lame, even to me.

“Well… okay, but I think we might need to consider their offer.”

“It would mean moving to Hart. Bullet said they have a house we could stay in.” I don’t want to add that he said we could rent our house in Seattle out. I’m not planning on being gone that long. “It would mean switching colleges and you haven’t even started yet.”

“That’s the good part, then, isn’t it?”

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